A COMPANY owner has vowed that he will go to jail rather than pay the Child Support Agency on behalf of any of his staff who are denied access to their children.

A COMPANY owner has vowed that he will go to jail rather than pay the Child Support Agency on behalf of any of his staff who are denied access to their children.

Pat Lyons, who owns PJL Surveys, a civil engineering firm in Port Talbot, has made the pledge on behalf of fathers who are unfairly blocked from seeing their children.

All 12 of Mr Lyons' staff were given contracts saying that after 26 weeks of employment his firm will not pay the CSA on their behalf if they are being denied access in breach of a court order.

Mr Lyons, 43, who has been through his own separation, said he would go to jail and allow the Government to fold his company, which has traded in South Wales for more than 20 years, before he would breach the contracts.

He said the problem of men being denied access to their children is "destroying small businesses".

Men who find themselves in this position often under-perform in the workplace because their personal problems make it difficult for them to devote themselves to the job, he argues.

Two years ago, Mr Lyons paid the salary of Mark Harris, from Plymouth, when he was sent to prison for 10 months for waving to his children and breaking injunctions preventing him seeing them.

Mr Lyons said, "The situation with seeing the children must not be grey at all.

"It must be absolutely that the mother is out 100% not to comply with the court order and the court order must be in place.

"If that father is told by a court that he must see his children and if he is rightly turning up to see his child and that child is being held back by the mother, we will take on the issue with him.

"We will support him as an employee. In supporting him, we will provide him with the use of our telephones to ring organisations that will help.

"We will tell him he can use our internet service to access information.

"We will also tell him that if he is not seeing his children we will aggressively fight the CSA for him, which includes telling the CSA we will not deduct this payment. I will write to them and tell them.

"I will fight this organisation head on. I'm prepared to go to jail for justice.

"I would go to jail before I would back down on this issue."

A spokesperson for the Department of Work and Pensions said Mr Lyons would be breaking the law and could be prosecuted if he refused to make payments to the CSA for one of his staff.

Fathers for Justice, which campaigns for better rights of access and custody for men, backed Mr Lyons's stance.

Spokesman and founder Matt O'Connor said there is no legal presumption to contact for parents, despite obligations to pay a child's maintenance.

But family law specialists Hugh James solicitors, based in Cardiff, said the law is there to protect everyone and the suitable response from fathers is to attempt to have contact orders enforced.

Solicitor Malcolm Stevens said, "Men often feel aggrieved when they are prevented from seeing children whilst at the same time they are being required to make child maintenance payments.

"They often want to strike back at the parent who has care of the child by refusing to pay.

"That, however, is not the responsible and correct way of going about the problem."

But Fathers for Justice says courts are almost never willing to jail mothers who refuse to abide by contact orders.

The group criticises the courts for jailing mothers when they fail to send their children to school and refusing to punish them when they prevent their child from seeing their father.

Mr Lyons says he was moved to take such a radical stance because of what he regards as the mistreatment of fathers by family courts.

Mr Lyons, who sees his son Ashley Davies Lyons, 6, on weekends, said, "Throughout, industry the costs are borne through under-utilisation of staff. My business has run at 30% below capacity because of this problem."

He added that at the moment all his staff who are separated are being given proper access and he has not yet had to follow through his contractual commitment.